Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Society needs science, and scientists need an informed, thoughtful, and open-minded citizenry. [2] This is however not possible without the exhibition of solid scientific communication skills. Assuming that our audience has the full capacity to absorb what is presented to them, the only limitation would then be the scientific researcher's ability to translate his or her ideas across efficiently. With this in mind, we would like to consider some of the communication needs of the scientific research sector.

Firstly, writing scientific reports is one aspect of the communication needs in the scientific research field. Many tertiary students in NUS should be familiar with the numerous lab reports that are required in the various modules. Indeed, scouring through the academic requirements of various sciences and engineering degrees of tertiary institutions, it is not hard to realize that scientific reports form an integral portion of one's module grade.

In addition, the writing of research proposals and grant applications are also crucial skills that a lot of scientists have expressed interest in a research done by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). [3] The abovementioned scientific writing skills are also in demand after tertiary studies as shown by the similar job requirement for scientific-related positions advertised online. [4]

Other than the component of scientific writing, there is also the emphasis on the aspect of scientific presentation skills as mentioned by our interviewee, Prof. Helmer. This is another important part of scientific research where the speaker presents his or her ideas directly to an audience. In the tertiary institution setting, students across the faculties are often expected to give oral and visual presentations together with the submission of their scientific manuscripts.

Outside school, the requirement of good presentation skills can also be often seen on advertisement for careers in the scientific field. All in all, scientific communication needs to be underpinned by training and evaluation and they would be best served in the area where the needs originated- the school.

Problem Statement:

The inability to write scientific papers effectively remains a problem for many college students. To identify pedagogical constructs that help undergraduates write well in scientific formats, Jerde and Taper evaluated the effect of the number and type of college composition courses previously taken, science writing experience, and tutorial services and found that the only significant factor influencing scientific writing performance was prior scientific writing experience. [5] This suggests that more emphasis should be placed on scientific writing within the undergraduate science curriculum.

According to our interviewee, Prof. Helmer, there are insufficient opportunities for NUS students to hone their scientific writing skills. Hence, the purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of extending relevant scientific writing modules from the science faculty to all other relevant faculties with similar needs. In addition, this will also lead to the prospect of initiating a compulsory scientific writing module for all the science and engineering freshmen in addition to the current curriculum of the NUS FOS and FOE.